A day with the anti-Olympic movement

I spent Saturday afternoon in the company of the Counter Olympics Network, (CON), who are the main coalition of anti-Olympics campaign, taking in OurOlympics, the Coalition of Resistance, the main parties of the left, various NGOs campaigning against sweatshop labour and the Olympics sponsors (BP, Dow, G4S, etc), as well as many other veterans of the Occupy movement. Our main topic of discussion was what plans should we have for the proposed day of action on Saturday July 28th (i.e. the first Saturday of the Olympics). I’ll not go into too much detail here, save to record that the focus is likely to be in East London during the middle of the day.

There will be weekly planning meetings taking place between now and the 28th and those interested in getting involved should look out for updates from CON and OurOlympics.

In the evening, I was at Bookmarks, for Carlos and Zirin’s warm-up talk. John Carlos described growing up in poverty in Harlem, following the rise of Malcolm X and being part of his entourage, what it felt like when Malcolm died, and the enduring shame of racism in the US.

Dave Zirin had some nice lines too. “In two days in England I’ve learned that Black pudding isn’t chocolate. And that Dave Cameron is both a dick and a tosser…”